Overview of open data ecosytem in Africa 

According to the results of a recent report by the Open Data Barometer, African nations still need to carry on their efforts to reach open data maturity and reach higher positions in the international ranking. However, the African community is already aware of the importance of the data to make decisions to boost socio-economic growth in the region and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals that seek to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure global prosperity.

In this context, Open Data for Africa is launched, a tool aimed at publishing and promoting access to open data from 54 African countries. This project is a response from the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and provides a platform for the regional organizations which have the opportunity to publish and disseminate their data through a set of tools that provides access and visualizations of information.

Thanks to this portal, agencies can publish and upload their data on the site according to international standards; enabling the re-use of information by the open data community and removing barriers between different nations. In this way, any user can choose the country and access its data catalog. In addition, each of the microsites has a number of displays that make socioeconomic and demographic data more understandable.

Meanwhile, one of the larger and more active networks on open data is Code for Africa, which, despite the wide variation in economic and government systems, with further differentiation by language and religion, is a federated umbrella for initiatives taking place in the continent. A priority for this program is digitizing and liberating data, building APIs to access existing data and supporting scrapping projects to unlock the knowledge held in academia, the media, civil society, and citizen groups.

In order to show the real potential of open data in Africa, the entity also provides citizen-driven solutions. Thus, Code for Africa is responsible for GotToVote tool already used in Kenya, Malawi or Zimbabwe or OpenAFRICA portal, the largest independent repository of open data with more than 2,200 datasets from African continent.

At the government level, it should be noted the effort Burkina Faso is investing in the openness and re-use of public sector information. Since the launch of its open data site in 2014, the West African country has chosen to open up public sector information to find solutions to national problems while it encourages foreign investment, boosts job creation in the ICT sector and promotes cooperation with international organizations.

This has been the case of the open data project "Our schools, our data" (Nos Ecoles, Nos Donness)  which, with the help of the Open Data Institute, created the NEND application to locate schools in the country and provide metadata of them: number of students, teachers, facilities, financial results. Currently, this service has opened up fifty datasets, and thanks to this information it is possible to better understand the national educational landscape and take appropriate measures to optimize policies on country's education.

Aware of the challenges and obstacles that open data community faces in Africa, it continues joining efforts and working on projects that gradually approach the potential for reuse of public sector information to society. Thus, a firm commitment by opening data through robust policies and partnerships between the public and private sectors will enable African nations reach maturity on open data and scale positions in international rankings.